Have you ever listened to a news report or read the newspaper and been struck by the use of a particular word? Me too. In fact — probably no surprise to you here — it happens all the time to me. While I don’t exactly take notes, I often write down words and phrases when they catch my attention.
Sometimes the words strike me as being odd or used incorrectly, while other times I find a word to be just plain interesting. Occasionally I come across words I simply don’t understand and have to look them up.
Today, we’ll jump right into the fire with some words from a very recent political scene.
First up is “Retrumplicans,” a word coined by CNN commentator Chris Cuomo to describe ardent supporters of the former president. I think it’s clever because it not only describes his staunchest believers, it also has the same number of syllables as “Republicans.”
One conservative pundit warned that too many of Donald Trump’s supporters have become enslaved to his person and personality, stating, “This is not hero worship. This is idolatry.” While it’s pretty easy to discern the meaning of idolatry from the context, I still looked it up to find out its exact definition, which is, “The worship of a physical object or person as a god.”
On the morning of Jan. 6, an NBC correspondent reported on the importance of the election of two Democratic U.S. senators in Georgia. During her piece, she commented on the enormity of what their victories meant for their party. What she meant was “the enormousness,” or the quality of being huge in size or scope.
“Enormity,” which is extreme evil or moral offensiveness, is the correct word for what took place at the U.S. Capitol a few hours later. Even while the dust was still settling, several lawmakers said they’d censure (severely criticize or condemn) any of their colleagues who supported the rioters. Other senators and representatives wanted only to “censor” them (suppress their communications).
The censoring would come later when Twitter permanently “deplatformed” the president for violating its terms of use.
With the damage repaired, President Biden would soon be sworn in, providing what one columnist described as “a brief interregnum,” or time between one reign and the next.
Getting back to news on a local level brings me to a recent ad for a virtual seminar to be conducted by “Dr. Nirav Shah, MD., JD.” I hate to be that guy, but as impressive as those titles sound, they shouldn’t all be used at the same time. According to the Associated Press Stylebook, Maine’s most popular doctor should be referred to as either “Nirav Shah, M.D, J.D.,” or “Dr. Nirav Shah,” but not by both his courtesy title and his academic degrees in the same reference.
Then there was the article that covered the controversy surrounding a museum’s attempt to deaccession and sell some of its artwork to raise money. I hereby nominate “deaccession,” the removal of a book or work of art from the collection of a library or museum and selling it, to be the word of the week.
Finally, a columnist for this newspaper recently wrote about a large group of crows, which he correctly referred to as a murder. That immediately started me wondering: If it takes at least three crows to make a murder, does that mean two crows are an attempted murder?
Jim Witherell of Lewiston is a writer and lover of words whose work includes “L.L. Bean: The Man and His Company” and “Ed Muskie: Made in Maine.”
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